Who here has a soft road inspired daily driver in FWD, econo-rocketbox form?

Rally cars are awesome, it's a known fact. My 2007 MS3's mudflaps scrape on just about everything and it's bananas. So I got to thinking, what about a mild lift and some soft road/dirt inspired meats on this thing so it's not quite so low, but fill out the wheel wells with something with a little more tooth? 

Why don't I see more of this? 

I see a lot of Subarus around town that are lifted, which makes some sense, though most are perfect paint, perfect everything and I'm absolutely positive they must have just washed it, polished it, and done a detail when they got back from the trail. 

What I want is a relatively compact car with some ground clearance, some scoot, and the ability to haul gear to a trailhead without worrying about ripping my undercarriage apart. The MS3 has a LSD, so you know, it's not all for nothing just because it's FWD. 

Anybody have one in their stable? Not looking for a racecar, just instead of modifying a daily driver to towards the Earth, I'm wanting to go the other way since that is much, much more usable for me based on my geography in the US. 

Not FWD but AWD and does a pretty good job as a soft roader. Mine is the TDI with 305 hp and 490 lb-ft of torque. It scoots very well. The wife and I ran about 1/2 of the South Carolina Adventure Route in it. It's good enough for what I do off-road I'm considering selling my XJ. 

If you buy the previous generation, the prices are pretty reasonable and it comes with a low-range transfer case. A 2" lift kit will set you back about $200. 

When I wear out the current set of tires on my Volvo V50, there's a good chance I'll do a very mild lift and put some dirt-friendly tires on it. There are a few people out there who've done it, and I like the concept. All my other cars are low and stiff, so it would be nice to have something different without losing the basic daily utility of the car as it is. Picture this about 20-30mm higher with the stock 16" alloys and more sidewall (the snows seen in the photo are on 17s) and you'll get the idea.

FWIW, my Volvo and your MS3 share a platform - you may find some useful info if you search for lifted V50s.

Alltrack! Mine's lowered now, but stock, they've got quite a bit of ground clearance. Mine's IS38 swapped with all of the supporting modifications, and makes 300hp or so at the wheels. It's a lot of fun 

That is what my Rabbit GTI was before I parked it to work on it for a few months... a decade ago...

Neuspeed SofSport springs before they were lowering springs and Bilstein HD shocks tuned for those springs on that car. I could hit speed "humps" (the gentle speed bumps) at 50 with no bottoming, no harshness, and only one bounce per hump.

I did wear halfway through the oil pan playing in the dirt, but the Rabbit GTI has an "oops" extra low oil pan.

Oh, and just in case you want something a little different. This popped up local to me. I doubt it meets the fast requirement but it certainly should turn some heads. 

Marketplace Link.

I run a 2011 Subaru Outback...............it's pretty much stock.

I actually run it down dirt roads and sand washes to get to places like ghost towns, better fishing holes and driving though the desert to see the wild flowers.

In stock trim it could use about 1-2" more ground clearance for some of the nasty washouts we occasionally encounter. The car makes it across but it scrapes the front bumper cover on occasion. 

This is pretty much the original Outback and all of its offshoots (Alltrack, Allroad, etc).

I used to have a 323 GTX that fit the bill very nicely. That was such a fun car.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I'm surprised at how well the Outback works for me; it does a bit of off-roading, carries race car parts around, home store runs and on a curvy road it's still fun enough to drive that I don't hate it. 

I also use it at a track day once for instructor training; the track was wet so that made it fun.

In reply to Tom1200 :

We used to have a 1998 Legacy GT, which is fundamentally a  Outback without the lift and the painted "side cladding". I put a stiffer rear sway bar on it and it was a great back road car.

There's a guy around here that has a 2nd gen Focus that looks pretty rally inspired.  Looks a little dumb but I get what he's going for.  

There's currently a lifted Prius on mud tires in the GRM for sale section 

While the concept is fun, a regular stock fwd car will go through some remarkably gnarly stuff just fine- ask anybody who has used a rental car for recce.

With that in mind, what does it take to get a Speed3 closer to normal height?  Maybe the standard Mazda3 has the parts you need.

My Impreza on Forester STi shocks, springs and larger tires has impressed me.  Adding a rear sway bar helped make it more fun on and off road.  Mainly limited by ground clearance.  From a stop deep sand mud and climbing obstacles is an issue due to lack of a low range and being a 5 speed.  You either stall or burn the clutch. 

Tons of fun bombing around the forest and still has good street manners. 

The automatic Volvo to the right did pretty well but was allergic to deeper water / mud crossings.  

I know that Gingium on Histube did a lift on a Miata that just used a shock kit from Illinois. And it was only $1500 back then. That is a possibility to try to lift a MS3. Is the suspension very similar to a Miata?

I used a Paco kit on mine.

This lift kit for a Mazda 3 looks remarkably like the ones that fit my Volvo V50. They seem to come in 20, 30, and 40mm versions, though from what I've read the highest ones start to cause geometry issues that require additional fiddling to deal with. The AWD Volvos on the Ford C1 platform (Volvo calls it P1, but it's the same thing) have a 10mm spacer on top of the front strut mounts. More extreme lifts have been achieved with custom subframe mounts and swapped parts from other C1 platforms (such as the Ford Escape), most of which should be applicable to the Mazda 3 as well.

I'm just here for the pictures. 

A lot of rad builds here. 

MyMiatas said:

I know that Gingium on Histube did a lift on a Miata that just used a shock kit from Illinois. And it was only $1500 back then. That is a possibility to try to lift a MS3. Is the suspension very similar to a Miata?

I used a Paco kit on mine.

 

I don't think any other Mazdas use a non-strut suspension.

Note that actual rally cars have tires no taller than 65cm, this equates to roughly a 215/65R15 for gravels and 225/40R18 for tarmacs.  This will be a lot smaller in OD for many modern cars   The gravel setups generally only look really lifted because the fenders have a lot more tire clearance.  Lower is generally faster no matter what the surface.

My favorite setup was what I had in my S40: stock ride height in the front with 200ish lb-in springs (100% increase), V40 wagon rear springs on Dodge Colt shocks, which brought the ride height back down to stock.  It felt composed over anything, it absorbed everything, and it was really chuckable.  It rode on 195/55-15 Comp2s on the stock 6" wheels, which also worked really well.  A real rally car its dimensions would probably have 185 width gravels or 205 width tarmacs in a 62cm diameter.

For dampers it had Bilstein twintubes up front and AGXs in the rear.  I would love to have tried Evo III units but I could never find anything that wasn't Malaysian riceware.  (Do all Evos go to Malaysia when they die?  Could it be related to how Proton built them under license as the Wira?)  I thought about buying Evo VIII takeoffs just to see if they fit but never actually spent the money.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

While the concept is fun, a regular stock fwd car will go through some remarkably gnarly stuff just fine- ask anybody who has used a rental car for recce.

With that in mind, what does it take to get a Speed3 closer to normal height?  Maybe the standard Mazda3 has the parts you need.

If the springs are not heavily pigtailed, I'd get springs for the heaviest vehicle on that chassis and cut the ends down until the ride height was correct.

Or, poke around in spring catalogs.  Those springs I got for my '02 Volvo started life as heavy duty springs for the rear of a '68 Cutlass, the rear springs for my old RX-7 came in a box with a part number for a '96-up Excort Wagon 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

1st and 2nd gen mazda 6

On my N/A 3, I'm running Mazda 5 front and (2012 MY) rear springs.   The 5 fronts are damn near same rate as stock n/a 3, the rears are around 65% stiffer (!).  That lot gives me 6.5" to the lowest point on the car.  The rears I've cut to keep it more or less level (uncut it was around 1"-1.5" higher at the rear).  This is on a sedan, I believe the hatch has a heavier rear end.  To keep help geometry, I've got Whiteline ALK in the back of the front LCAs, and an additional strut top reinforcement plate between the top hat and the tower, to give clearance to slot the towers a bit to recover camber and get a bit more caster.  I've also shuffled the front x member to even up camber and gain a bit more caster.  I'm stuck with stock tyre sizes (205/50 R17) as there's not much availability here, ideally you'd drop to 16" to get some sidewall.

This lot is just to cope with the roads here - everyday I drive on potholed, rock strewn tracks.

The issue with the MS3 is you're already heavier on the nose than the n/a cars, so you're not going to gain with the 5 springs, the highest rate stock front spring is the MS3 spring.  Your best bet would be those spacers on the front, with 5 springs on the back, tickled to the size you want.  Other than that you're into a custom set up..

What you suggest is exactly the future of my ms3, I suspect. 

I would like to stress to NOT put spacers between the struts and the body.  This will raise ride height but will not increase ride quality, you still have the same bump and droop travel.  It will still crash into the bump stop as often.

Fig. 1:  Cornering hard enough to peel the tire halfway off the rim despite being at 30psi.  Not pictured: Cornering on a bumpstop.  This is a case where stiffer springs increase front grip and reduce understeer, because the outside is not at near-infinite rate sitting on its stop.  And it rides a hell of a lot better than crashing the stops all the time, too.  Railroad tracks, juctions, any other place on the road where it's easy to get air, car go *thoomp* and through it like nothing.

Regarding the Mazdaspeed 3, I wonder how similar the late model Volvo S60 and XC60 and such are.  The post 2009 S60s look more like elongated Focuses than anything Volvo ever made, and they were available with much heavier drivetrains.

Flatout makes coilovers for the Mazda3 if you feel like spending money: https://flatoutsuspension.net/products/mazda3-gr?_pos=2&_sid=1aaa6fd0a&_ss=r